Goraždevac ( sr-Cyrl, Гораждевац, sq, Gorazhdevc or Kastrat/Kastrati) is a village near the city of
Peja
Peja (Indefinite Albanian form: ''Pejë'' ) or Peć ( sr-Cyrl, Пећ ) is the fourth largest city of Kosovo and seat of Peja Municipality and Peja District. It is situated in the region of Rugova on the eastern section of the Accursed Mounta ...
in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Eur ...
. It has been inhabited since at least the thirteenth century, when it was mentioned in the
chrysobull
A golden bull or chrysobull was a decree issued by Byzantine Emperors and later by monarchs in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, most notably by the Holy Roman Emperors. The term was originally coined for the golden seal (a ''bull ...
of
Stefan Nemanja
Stefan Nemanja (Serbian Cyrillic: , ; – 13 February 1199) was the Grand Prince ( Veliki Župan) of the Serbian Grand Principality (also known as Raška, lat. ) from 1166 to 1196. A member of the Vukanović dynasty, Nemanja founded the Nem ...
(or his son,
Stefan the First-Crowned
Stefan Nemanja II ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Немања II, ), or Stephen the First-Crowned ( sr, / , ; – 24 September 1228), was the Grand Prince of Serbia from 1196 and the King of Serbia from 1217 until his death in 1228. He was the first ...
).
History
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, 47 Serbs and Montenegrins were killed in the village in 1941 by Albanian paramilitaries. As a
Serb
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of ...
-inhabited enclave in a heavily
Albanian-inhabited region of western Kosovo, Goraždevac has been the scene of ethnic tensions between the two communities. It was the scene of attacks by the guerilla group, the
Kosovo Liberation Army
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA; , UÇK) was an Albanians, ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast ma